


Heat of the Past

by matrixrefugee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-15 21:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17536757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: During a job in Massachusetts, John has a tough moment that brings him back to the past...





	Heat of the Past

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/profile)[fic_promptly](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/)'s [Supernatural, John Winchester, the heat of the flames give him nightmares](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/181939.html?thread=7910323#cmt7910323). Warning for PTSD-like symptoms. Also, puckwudgies are a thing: they're a critter said to live in parts of Massachusetts, and according to Wampanoag lore, they look like short, stocky humanoids covered in hair and they're said to be Trickster-like, generally harmless troublemakers, but also said to be violence-prone if provoked. One of the local paranormal investigation groups went in search of them with mixed results.

Salting then torching the body belonging to a restless spirit -- a 1920s preacher who'd terrorized a bar built over the site of his house -- with Dean dowsing the body with gasoline while John readied the match.

"Want to to light this mook up?" Dean asked, tossing the empty jerry can aside.

"Yer still a bit young," John said, striking the wooden safety match on the sandpaper side of the box.

"I'm not gonna throw the whole box in," Dean groused. The kid had just turned fifteen, and John wanted to spare him singeing his eyebrows off for one more year. The flame on the match caught on the tattered clothes of the corpse, turning the tattered edges of aging fabric brown, then black, then making them curl up. The flames licked up the legs of the corpse, catching on the mummified flesh.

\-- The flames on the ceiling, catching on Mary's nightgown as she lay spread-eagled above him --

"Next year, when you get yer driving license," John said, tossing the match in before striking another. He tossed that one onto the head of the corpse.

\-- Mary's face, contorted in pain as the flames enveloped her spread across the ceiling and down the walls --

"Awww, Dad, I drive as good as you do," Dean groused. "Maybe better. What about the time you got cut up dealing with those puckwudgies and I had to drive you back to Andover?"

"That was an emergency: can't have you getting in trouble with traffic police; it'd give them reason to start sniffing around where they shouldn't," John replied, keeping his face to the flames to make sure the fire stayed contained in the grave but his eyes averted enough that he didn't look directly into them.

"Yeah, whatever, I'm going back to the car," Dean said, turning away from the grave and taking up one of the shovels.

"I'll be along when the fire dies down," John said, looking after Dean as his son went on his way.

\-- Rushing out of the house, bits of burning wood and furniture falling about him as he ran for the stairs, the heat on his face and hands and feet --

John took up the other shovel and brought it down on the skull of the corpse, then the shoulders and the pelvis, shattering the bones into coals. Only when the coals had burned down to gravelly ashes, he set to work filling in the grave before returning to the car.

* * * *

Running into Sammy's room, after leaving the baby with Dean outside. Mary on the ceiling, already ablaze, the flames engulfing the room. John trying to pull her down and throw a blanket about her. But something emerged from the flames, something with dark wings and yellow eyes, closing the wings about the both of them.

The heat. The burning heat. The flames of hell itself, swallowing them both, pulling them down as the floor caved in, drawing them down. Dean's voice yelling to him from an immense distance...

\-- John jerked awake on the floor beside the bed in the motel room, tangled in the covers. Dean knelt over him. "Dad... Dad, wake up, it's just a dream."

John reached out across the void, taking Dean's face in both his hands. Dean put an arm around him, pulling him close. "Dean... are you real?"

"Real as I'll ever be," Dean said. "...Dreaming about Mom?" he asked.

"Yeah... back at the house," John replied.

"Next time we make a corpse into a crispy critter, you let me do it," Dean said, looking him in the eye. "Spare you the nightmares."

John dropped his gaze, then looked up, finding Dean's gaze again. "All right," he said, wanting to sound reluctant, but too shaken to make the effort.


End file.
